


It Went Like This...

by Xerox



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Harvey Backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-10
Updated: 2012-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-31 13:43:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xerox/pseuds/Xerox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt at Suitsmeme, Harvey's family is messed up, unstable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Went Like This...

It went like this. She was seven when her first younger brother was born and ten when Harvey was born. At seven she remembered going to the hospitable and her mom on the bed, holding this ugly screaming baby. It took her awhile to realize that now that she had a son, her father put her on the back burner, but now that she was older with her own family, she saw it clearly. But it didn’t hurt as much as it probably should.

Jarrod was three when Harvey was born, and at first nothing seemed off. There were some really cute pictures of them together and really, she had her own real life doll. Till this day she is convinced that Harvey’s penchant for class was all to do with their mom’s old movies and endless tea parties and fashion shows.

Unfortunately even back then things were wrong. Their mom was having a hard time after Harvey, which made it a really good thing that she was so excited about having an actual baby. She remembers being taken car of, fed anyway. The fighting between her mother and father seemed to get louder. Changed into something that seemed normal to something scary. And soon her father’s angry words moved to them.

She remembers laundry and dishes and nothing good enough. And Jarrod, Jarrod just started to get mean. It was ridiculous, she knew this. He was three, but those were the first glimpses into the future. At the time she was just annoyed. Harvey was usually a calm baby, just sat in his car seat and gargled. But Jarrod stated to find it amusing to pull his pacifier out and giggle as Harvey tried to get it back, then wait until Harvey started crying before giving it back.

Maybe how Jarrod turned out was her fault, but she was only ten and Harvey had been helpless. So she’d naturally paid him more attention. Even now, when she’d had young children she had panicked when she found her youngest taking up more of her attention. She’d actually panicked one day and called her husband in tears. Full out sobs while she had cuddled both of her children.

Things got better in some ways, their mother’s crippling depression lessoned and there wasn’t a ten year old running around playing mother of two.

Lots of things got worse. Their father lost his job to begin with, and it seemed like overnight a twelve pack of beer became the constant companion next to him and his armchair. Their mother got a job, but it didn’t pay as much and she never seemed to be home. Harvey started to walk. And not just walk but get into everything.

He’d always thrown things and he’d always been exceptional at climbing out of his playpen to get his toys back. But now he was able to get further, quicker, while his aim and strength at throwing things got better. One day she and her mother were putting up groceries, neither doing much more than knowing where Harvey and Jerrod were. She had noticed Jarrod grab Harvey’s favorite toy and start taunting him, but she’d had her hands full of canned vegetables and their mother never seemed to care.

Until Jarrod was screaming and crying, holding his eye with blood all over his face and Harvey looked on with wide eyes.

The culprit had been a coke can and it left Jarrod with a scar on his eyebrow that just made him look mean.

It didn’t help that Harvey liked to throw things to get attention. Too many times to count she’d seen their father throw toys back at the toddler.

The longer their father was out of work and their mother worked full time, the more the house degraded. The angrier their father got. She was twelve, there was no way she could keep up a house. She did the chores but she wasn’t used to an immaculate house, and for so long clothes had piled up and corners seemed the best place for toys. She could see the counters but she was used to them being crowded and covered with junk. She didn’t know better.

She didn’t even know what set it off, but in one moment she was backhanded hard enough she hit the floor.

And then no one was really safe. It never turned into a horror story. They were never covered in bruises, never any broken bones, but it wasn’t punishments. It was always done out of anger and frustration, and their father had always looked horrified after he’d done it… but he always hit them again.

By the time Jarrod was seven, he was just plain mean and quick with his fists and she saw Harvey following in his footsteps. She found herself desperate not to have another Jarrod ‘stabbing’ dolls to her bed and practicing swirlies on his toys (or if another sibling was made, on it.) So she ended up taking him with her to old Mrs. Applebee. The old woman had offered her a job helping take care of her garden and was where she spent most of her Sunday mornings.

Mrs. Applebee had a son that was a little younger then she was but was slow. James and Harvey got along wonderfully and being around someone that was so nice and sweet seemed to curve the mean streak in Harvey. He was still quick to fight, and it would take well into adulthood to curve that, but he was never mean about it, and as they got older his anger seemed to gain more focus.

Jarrod, he just got meaner and angrier. And if it was one thing their parent’s disinterest did for the boys was imbed a need to succeed, to be the best at all costs. And that’s what Jarrod had to do, if he excelled a flicker of interest was shown by their father. Which just made it all worse. She’d see him in the park taunting smaller kids and kids that weren’t as good as him, shoving them in trashcans and beating them up. When she was twenty she watched in horror as he actually broke a kids arm. All to get some recognition from their father.

And Harvey, Harvey was desperate for their parent’s attention. By the time he was ten their mother was just going through the motions and their father had a job he hated, and still that damned twelve pack. Harvey didn’t hear much from their mother other then that’s good honey, with a disinterested look, and the same disinterest from their father, who when sober enough was only interested in why he wasn’t as tough as his brother.

And she had her own life by then; she was getting married, planning her life. She tried to be there for him and she would always be thankful of how understanding her husband had always been. She didn’t live there anymore though, and their mother didn’t like the image that him spending too much time with them made. So she’d decided to make it a habit to make family dinner at their house once a week, just so she could check on her brothers regularly. 

Jarrod was sixteen with a letterman jacket for football. He got away with too much and was angry at the world. Harvey was thirteen, stuck in the middle of a growth spurt, but popular in his own right, and he had this shit eating grin that made her want to just slap him on the back of the head. She was twenty-three, pregnant with her first child, and trying to beat into both of their heads that they couldn’t get away with everything. Sometimes almost pleading with them.

She was making a roast, her husband and Jarrod were talking football, and praying that maybe a good influence would settle Jarrod down, when Harvey came in. He was bloody and covered in dirt and had a scowl on his face that she recognized meant that something hadn’t gone the way he thought things should and mayhem was about to be raised.

Jarrod had immediately started making fun of him, while her husband asked if he’d given back as good as he’d gotten. She threw a clothe at her husband, wanting to remind him that was not the influence she wanted him to give, but instead pulled Harvey into the bathroom before his temper broke and Jarrod hurt him further.

Harvey proudly told her that he ‘had’ won, and explained how he’d been playing catch with Jerry when Cole from down the street, a fourteen year old built like an ugly fat tank, had decided to pick on Jerry.

The friendship between Jerry and Harvey had never ended even if he spent less time with him then his younger days and she’d always been proud of him for that. Apparently when she’d told him that everyone deserved a friend; he’d taken it to heart.

Apparently when Harvey told Cole to shove it, Cole had taken offence and started shoving Jerry around. Then Harvey started fighting Cole, and somehow managed to drag Cole all the way to his house. What had Harvey’s ire up had been that what upset the kid’s father was he lost to a kid half his size and not pushing Jerry.

She did her best to convince Harvey to drop it, but for the next few weeks there would always be a giant puddle of bright paint somewhere on the asshole’s property.

Honestly, she was just thankful that he’d never been caught, even if the cops knew it was him. She didn’t stop chastising him though.

When Harvey was sixteen he was the last one in the house, she had a three year old and a one year old and Jarrod was in college on a football scholarship. She wasn’t sure, but she thought things got worse. She hated that she had even less time with Harvey but he was working for a baseball scholarship and with two young children, their schedules were left hectic.

He was partying hard though and sometimes she’d wake up to find him passed out on the couch, his car parked drunkenly. She’d had so much fear for those two years that he would crash and kill himself.

He went through girls faster than Jarrod, but at least the splits seemed more amicable. Every time Jarrod had broken up there had been screaming and tears, with Harvey were some tears and sometimes harsh words but it seemed even then he made sure everyone knew that this was all for fun and that there were no guarantees.

Then in college he’d blown out his arm and those months, they were some of the worst. Three years in and he may not have a scholarship to finish college. In a way she blamed herself for his depression. She’d been the one to instill that dream into both boys. She’d never had a chance of going to college, she hadn’t been smart enough and her priorities had always laid elsewhere. She was okay with that, in the end her life had been full and she wouldn’t change how it ended up for the world. But Harvey was so much more than mediocre, and she wanted nothing more than for him to reach his full potential, like her own children. He couldn’t do that without college.

So she scrambled while consoling her brother, convincing him not to give up because it would work out. It ended up with the worst argument of her marriage. She’d done everything she could to raise money and other scholarships but it wasn’t enough and Jarrod, the asshole, wouldn’t help. In desperation she’d asked to dig into their savings.

Her husband understood her relationship with her brothers but that was for their future and their children.

In the end he’d agreed unhappily and Harvey finished that last year but seemed distant and lost afterwards. He stayed in New York where he’d gone to college, but something happened and he’d convinced himself that he was not going anywhere. She never figured out what had happened those two years after college for Harvey just that he sent money to repay the loans diligently and he didn’t talk about his future. He didn’t seem depressed, just resigned. And in a way that had broken her heart more than the actual depression had. There had been nothing she could do to fix whatever it had been.

Then one night she got a hectic call about a woman named Jessica (a daughter of the Senior Partner! At the law firm he worked at) offering to pay his way through Harvard. And what should he do? It was the opportunity of a lifetime and she was convinced she could get him in to Harvard.

Which lead them to now, Christmas at her house, all of her children home, her youngest brother home, and pure mayhem.

And she was glaring at him because he’d taken it upon himself to make her children a college fund without asking her or her husband. Her seventeen year old was talking about expensive dreams of Stanford, while her twenty two year old was talking about med school, and apparently that last scholarship for her nineteen year olds first year of college? Him. The fact that it was needed didn’t change her glare at all.

“Think of it as interest and repayment.” He explained with that same cocky and proud smile from when he was ten. “I wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for you.”

She scoffed but the appreciation of her sacrifices sent a warm feeling through her chest, and she found herself crying while her oldest daughter tried to comfort her. And Harvey had the same wide-eyed panicked look that he’d had when he’d given Jarrod that scar.

Then her perfect husband ruined the moment and broke the tension by walking in, still in his ratty old robe and tube socks. “Harvey, if you made my wife cry, I can guarantee there ain’t no fancy New York hotels in this town.”

The End


End file.
